Syrian opposition won't participate in peace talks

By Barbara Surk
Associated Press

Published: Sunday, Aug. 2 2015 6:32 p.m. MDT

A Syrian woman walks past a house destroyed from a government airstrike in Syria. The country's main Western-backed opposition group says it won't participate in U.S.-Russian sponsored peace talks. (Associated Press)

BEIRUT — Syria's main Western-backed opposition group says it will not participate in U.S.-Russian sponsored peace talks while the regime is carrying out massacres in Syria.

Thursday's announcement came at the end of weeklong opposition talks in Istanbul to try and forge a united view on whether to take part in the peace conference expected to take place in Geneva next month.

A spokesman for the Syrian National Coalition, Khalid Saleh, says an "international conference on a political solution to the situation in Syria has no meaning in light of the massacres that are taking place."